


all these lonely kids

by transvav



Series: if i'm found, i'll end up lost [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Dream Smp, Gen, Realm of Mianite, Smile :), everyone is more or less mentioned but those tagged have speaking roles, gratuitous use of update and magic and that kind of stuff, hi i don't know What's going on and now you are all have to suffer with my mind, takes place directly after the events of the festival day, there's not enough dad jordan content and frankly i'm upset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:47:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transvav/pseuds/transvav
Summary: (have so much more to live for)tommy and tubbo decide they can't stay. luckily enough, tubbo has somewhere they know where to go.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Jordan Maron, Jordan Maron & Lady Ianite, Jordan Maron & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Series: if i'm found, i'll end up lost [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2008657
Comments: 35
Kudos: 603





	all these lonely kids

**Author's Note:**

> lowercase intended because writing in normal capitalization just makes my brain Break unfortunately. jordan in the smp go brr even though he's not... in..... the smp  
> also warden jordan bc haha i have a brand

when tommy first brings up running away from pogtopia, niki and tubbo agree without question.

but when the day actually comes‒ that next morning, early, just before the sun rises so they can travel by the budding light‒ niki tells them she can’t, not really.

“i’ll still send you letters,” she assures. “i’ll still‒ i’ll keep in contact best i can. and i know it might be wrong of me to hope, but... he’s still my friend. and if he really _is_ off the deep end, then i’ll run, but i need to know for sure that he can’t be saved.”

“we can’t afford that risk,” tommy whispers. “i can’t afford to be around him, and i _sure as fuck_ don’t want to be anywhere near techno right now.”

“go,” niki assures them. “i’ll be safe. if not here, then with eret.”

the issue is, though, when they set out‒ tommy’s not sure _where_ they’re going. techno knows the place too well, memorized every tree and blade of grass and turn of the river, knows the soil too well beneath his feet. knows what’s good for farming, knows the best place for his fights, where his stance will be steady and his gaze clear. there is nowhere in the near boundaries of the smp that tommy and tubbo can go for very long without him finding them in the end. techno may not have his whole godhood, but that’s who he is to his core‒ blood for the blood god, and techno has, within no uncertain terms, gotten his taste of blood.

they slink uneasily to the docks, shadows long in the sun’s rising light, careful and cautious of the rest of the sleeping world. but when they get there tommy falters, looks out over the long distant waters, and turns to tubbo very matter of factly.

“tubbo,” he says, straight laced and serious.

“yes, tommy?”

“i have... _no clue_ where we’re going to go.”

“that’s okay, tommy,” his friend says, and tugs a boat by the chain a little closer to step in more easily. “i have somewhere in mind.”

“what about techno?”

“eh,” tubbo says, and holds a hand out to tommy to help him into the boat, and that, tommy knows, will be the end of that.

so. into the boat he goes.

tubbo sets them on a course without a compass and _rows_ , and rows, and keeps on rowing. there comes a point when the sun is finally above the horizon that tommy thinks to question why he hasn’t seen any land, so far‒ there shouldn’t be this much ocean between the edge of the smp and the next shore, but there is _nothing_ except the constant, mirrored water and waves, unnaturally gentle and smooth as they go on and on. he opens his mouth, just for a second, but tubbo interrupts him without even trying, humming some little tune the both of them know. it’s not the anthem, and tommy is grateful for that, but it’s still sweet and calming, and tommy leans against his back and hums along.

tubbo keeps rowing.

he rows the whole damn day‒ they stop at what’s probably around noon, to eat, bread with berry jam and shredded chicken‒ but other than that, they row in silence. tommy’s not usually one for silence, but after the events of the day before, it’s pretty much all he can handle, right now. using the time to sit and just mull it all over is appreciated.

“are you sure,” he asks, only once, when his hands shake as he redresses his bandages, over where his knuckles split trying to punch techno‒ it reminds him of how _angry_ he’d been, how angry he still was, and how he’d been the one to call his brother in the first place, begging wilbur to please let him come, let him _help_ , he had to help, right. and that, in turn, reminds him of how wary wilbur had been to allow him in, to even talk‒ the revolution of l’manberg and, subsequently, pogtopia wasn’t a family affair, but they needed _help_ , with schlatt. and wilbur hadn’t wanted him here, and look where that had gotten them now‒ on the run, and scared, and alone save for one another. “are you sure where we’re going is safe?”

“yeah,” tubbo replies simply, like this isn’t so fucking important, like this isn’t _life-threateningly_ important. “yeah, it’s safe.”

and when the sun is halfway down to the other edge of the world, tommy hears tubbo shout happily, and when he turns around, he sees land.

more accurately, he sees _trees_ , distant and shadowed, against the horizon. the beach does, eventually, appear in his sights, but it’s the trees that make the biggest impression, dauntingly huge even from a distance, completely unnaturally tall. they’re jungle trees, he can tell by the shapes of the leaves, but they seem to be rising like a mountain, steadily climbing higher and higher as they get closer and closer.

there’s someone on the beach in neon green.

“dream?” tommy hisses. “tubbo, what the _fuck_ , man, he’s helping‒ he helped wilbr, he gave him the tnt!”

“that’s not who i was taking us to,” tubbo says back, a bit of confusion in his own voice. “not sure why he’s here, actually‒ but i don’t think he was helping wilbur on purpose, tommy.”

“oh, yeah, tubbo, then what the hell was he doing?”

“i think he was trying to diffuse the situation, tommy, i think he was trying to _protect_ you‒ because didn’t you tell me that was the night wilbur was really, _really_ out of it, tommy?”

tommy doesn’t say anything, and crosses his arms, and stares straight ahead when the boat rows up onto the shore.

“hello, dream!” tubbo calls with all the enthusiasm he’s ever had before, and tommy watches as dream almost _jolts_ , which of course he never does‒ dream is a minor god here, of course, and knows more about all of them than they do, knows the sounds of footsteps on sand, knows when someone’s closer than they should be to him. _no one_ should be able to sneak up on him, not like this, so it’s probably just a joke tubbo and him play.

“tubbo,” dream responds, and it’s really _dumb_ the way he acts like he wasn’t expecting tubbo at all. “hey‒ hey. hi. hi to you too, tommy, hi.”

“how long have you been waiting here, dream?” tommy spits. “how long did you know we were coming?”

“i didn’t,” the green bastard says. “i didn’t know, actually. but i can’t go anywhere else, so, i mean. why not- why not here.”

“can’t go anywhere else?” tommy asks. “what, you banned from your own land or some shit?”

“...yeah,” dream shrugs. “something like that.”

he doesn’t say more.

“what about sapnap and george, can’t they get you back?”

dream shifts in place and looks away, and tubbo seems to pick up on something that tommy sure as hell doesn’t. “they’re the closest to you, and they know how to lock you out‒”

“oh, holy _shit_ ,” tommy starts, and he almost laughs. almost, but dream doesn’t smile, doesn’t even twitch, doesn’t snap his head towards him like he usually would with that _look_ on the mask that makes everyone take pause, and that makes tommy pause more than anything.

“doesn’t matter,” dream eventually says. “in the long run, not much more i can do, not until‒ not until someone realizes. breaks the seal, i guess. not that anyone over there would‒”

“niki would,” tubbo immediately pipes up. “and eret, and hbomb?”

“‒or could,” dream finishes with a little tilt of his head. “but... you’re going to see him, aren’t you?”

“you know he’s there?”

_know who’s there_ , tommy thinks, but doesn’t get around to opening his mouth. he wants to see where this goes.

“yeah,” dream says. “yeah, i uh‒ i don’t know how he got here, or when, but he just kind of made his peace with it, and the world took shape around him. further than mine did. some kind of power he’s got but we‒ we both knew that, didn’t we?”

“why didn’t you go get him before, then?” tubbo asks, hands wrapping tight in his handkerchief, and dream makes a little noise of a laugh.

“i get lost easy,” dream shrugs. “you uh‒ you don’t have that issue, though, so. can i ask a favor?”

“i guess so, yeah,” tubbo says, and dream steps a little closer, and shifts off his mask.

from his pack he pulls a box that tommy hasn’t seen around here before, a lavender color with a leather-like finish that looks soft to the touch. it’s tied tight with bandages so as not to open, but if he listens close tommy can hear the clinking of bottles and netherite hitting diamond. there’s a scrawl of enchanting runes carved in the top, and tommy isn’t fluent in the language, but it doesn’t look like any enchantment he’s ever seen.

“he doesn’t have to use any of it,” dream mumbles. “but i think, more than anyone, he _deserves_ all of it.”

tubbo hums, and slips the box into his own pack.

“good luck,” dream says, and then when tommy blinks, he’s gone, and there isn’t even any purple particles to acknowledge that he’s pearled away.

“bit overdramatic, isn’t he?” tommy asks, and tubbo giggles.

“yeah,” he says, and then he tugs tommy into the jungle without any issue.

it is immediately dark.

the canopy of leaves it horrifyingly thick above them, like a blanket, and it blocks out the sunlight completely. the path, what little there is of it visible, dives _down_ like a slide of mud and twigs and nothing but danger. there’s nothing but fallen leaves and twisting vines, no clear cut way through‒ but tubbo, tubbo pushes through it all without issue, slipping between the mess with a practiced, mellow sort of ease, the way tubbo always does.

“you seem to know this place pretty well,” tommy eventually pipes up.

"i used to come here a lot," tubbo says, in that matter-of-fact way he always does, cheery and upbeat as always, so happy that it's easy to miss the nuance in the little words-

"used to?" tommy asks. "what happened?"

"oh, you know," tubbo replies with a half hearted shrug, slipping easily down a muddy slope that tommy stumbles down warily. "schlatt didn't really like it much when i wasn't by his side. i s'pose his worries were right though, yeah?"

"...yeah, tubbo," tommy says, watching the shorter boy duck easily beneath wild vines and sharp branches. "yeah, guess not."

they walk, again, in silence. mud and leaf stains begin to darken on tommy’s bandages and into his shirt. he gets cuts across his cheeks and arms and wishes, vindictively, that he’d stolen techno’s cape before he’d left that morning. maybe it would knock his brother down another peg, for that to be gone‒ but knowing techno, he may not have even noticed. probably would’ve gotten a new one, black and dark to match wilbur’s. or to match schlatt.

what are they doing, tommy thinks. what have they done.

the floor seems to go deeper and further down. the trees seem to get taller because of it. tommy hasn’t walked on the bottom of the ocean floor, but he thinks this might be what it looks like, dark, and foreboding, a pressure on his chest, so _easy_ to get lost. and for once, tommy thinks dream’s pretty smart for not going in without any type of direction. he shifts his grip on the strap of his pack, and keeps following tubbo.

“oh!” tubbo suddenly says. “we’re close!”

tommy almost asks what he means, but then he steps forward, and he feels it too‒ a wash of magic over him that he’s felt before, when the world shifts, when everything takes a breath and remembers something new. that’s _update_ magic, is what dream calls it, is what mostly everyone calls is, and a lot of the people on this server bounce between that magic, between the old and new. techno prefers the old magic, finds his home in the old magic‒ phil, though. phil lets his homeworld remember as naturally as breathing. this barrier, though. this isn’t _natural_ , because this magic hasn’t existed _anywhere_ ‒ it’s too unpredictable, too wild. yet here it is.

but now tommy sees signs of life and living‒ there are manmade paths trailing through the trees, marks and cuts, arrows lodged in hand-painted targets‒ all bullseyes, or very near ones. there are windchimes hanging from the lowest branches made from seaglass, and melted wax candles with dripping dye tucked beneath the stones at the roots of each trunk, wicks unlit but burnt with use. the further down the path they go, the more taken care of the area begins to appear. the path is lined in carefully placed polished andesite and smooth stone, handcut and hand picked, with fences of dark oak that hold perfectly perched soul-lit lanterns.

there are the sounds of livestock, now, getting closer the further along the path they go, cows, and chickens, and sheep‒ and _goats_ , tommy’s ears pick up on, there are goats in this jungle. he starts to see cats dart between the shadows, tumbling through the leaves, and a few foxes in the berry bushes which are planted with considerate care. there is a curtain of vines before them, now, draping from two unnaturally arching trees that cross over a considerable gap‒ it feels like a gateway. a threshold.

“tubbo,” tommy asks faintly. “are you sure we’re meant to _be_ here?”

of course, tubbo has already slipped through the vines without any fucking question.

and, dutifully, because what else is there to do, tommy goes and follows, and then is washed in immediate _light_.

when he clears the spots from his eyes, he realizes, first off, it’s not sunlight, but it’s a stark enough contrast from the dark jungle canopy that it left him a little blind. no, the light isn’t natural, not in the way he’s used too. but it’s not from torches, either‒ there’s a lone spot where a campfire should sit, but other than that, the light is coming from vines. or, rather, what’s on the vines, little glowing berries he’s never seen before. and the vines, he realized, are attached to the lowest of the branches from the trees _behind_ him.

in front of him is the biggest fucking tree tommy has ever goddamn seen.

it’s not quite a jungle tree, but at the same time, it blends so seamlessly with the rest of the area that it seems much too natural, so much so that it’s entirely out of place. the update magic here buzzes restlessly, but that might also be the bees that tommy can see buzzing in and out of the balcony spots a couple stories up. the roots of the place curl deep and low into the ground, but some arch high and twist into ramp-like pathways up to plateaus of mossy stone hills where tommy can see fences full of livestock, or pumpkin patches, watermelon fields and wheat farms.

there are no potatoes.

“tubbo,” tommy says faintly. “did you build this?”

“no,” tubbo says cheerily. “i think he might have, but he never said.”

“huh?”

"he's probably all the way up," tubbo chirps. "he's up there a lot."

" _who_ , and _why_."

tubbo, of course, ignores the first half. "he says he misses her."

“who the _hell_ are you talking about?”

tubbo _continues_ to ignore the first half, and takes tommy by the wrist with a smile. “c’mon, we’ll take the long way up. i think you might like the training floor.”

tommy stammers out some type of protest but doesn’t exactly fight the way tubbo pulls him along towards one of the roots closest to the ground where the moss and vines seem to be forcefully pulling it _downwards_ , pinning and sewing it to the earth deep into a little pond. tubbo lets go of his wrist and smiles at him reassuringly, and then he dips down into the water without any hesitation‒ and after a second, tommy rolls his eyes and dives in after him.

when he lifts his head above the surface again, he’s met with complete blind darkness, save for a soft blue light that filters from a hole in the ceiling a good few meters away. someone‒ he assumes tubbo‒ taps a stick against something, and suddenly there is a soft, purple light accompanied by a sweet humming chime. tubbo holds out his hand above him, completely dry, and he helps tommy out of the water onto the crystalline floor, where amethysts grow between the grooves of the hollowed trunk and a dark, endlike moss spreads across the corners, with chittering growths that shimmer with a soft teal glow.

“why’s it so dark?” tommy whispers‒ because that’s what feels right‒ and tubbo shrugs.

“the first few floors are like that,” he whispers back. “he gets overwhelmed, sometimes, by the light and sound, so i guess he needed the dark.”

“he doesn’t like sound, but he lets you in?” tommy asks, giving up on trying to figure out who tubbo is talking about‒ he supposes he’ll find out sooner or later. tubbo giggles in response and the both of them start making their way towards the ladder, tommy’s clothing dry and soft like they’d been freshly washed.

“there’s a special floor just for me!” tubbo says with a smile. “he soundproofed it, but i have a way to contact him anyways if i really, really want to talk to him.”

“like how you can find this place?”

“yeah, kind of, i guess!”

“and... no one else can?”

“no, i don’t think so,” tubbo shrugs, and that’s that.

the next floor is very much the same as the first, but instead of a ladder it’s a staircase, circling up the edge of the inner bark of the tree itself, carved carefully from the wood, wide enough to be safe without railings. even still, though, vines trailed down from beneath every step, to catch yourself on, as well as large, lily-pad like leaves that looked sturdy, if not a bit heavily bogged down, like they could hold you up‒ but only for a moment or two.

the third level is the most different.

the floor is made of sleek, dark oak instead of the warmer, paler oak of the stairs, and there’s a water elevator on the far side that stems from a manmade pool circled with smooth, spherical stones, steaming slightly from the magma beneath it. this, by far, seems to be the main hub‒ there are chests stacked against one of the walls, neatly labeled with pictures of the items presumably in them, but the main thing that catches tommy’s eye is the section across from the water elevator.

there are armor stands dressed in worn leather dyed black and white and green, stuffed with wool and dried grass, with marks and cuts and singes, clear pieces of newer leather patched over holes. there are wooden swords abandoned to the side, cracked and ruined, stone swords shattered into pieces, iron swords dulled to rusted points. even the diamond swords tommy spies hanging on the pegs on the wall are well worn, on their last legs‒ when tubbo ushers him closer, he notices none of them have the rune for mending on them, despite all the other enchantments that are on them.

this is a training area, and it’s _very_ similar to the one that phil has in the house he shares with tommy and his brothers off-world‒ the one he uses to make sure, without question, that he’ll survive in his home realm.

“jesus christ,” tommy whispers. “who the fuck lives here, tubbo?”

tubbo shrugs and smiles. “we can skip my room, for now, and go meet him?”

“yeah,” tommy agrees. “yeah, i think uh‒ i think we are _well_ past the time to meet your mystery man, tubbo.”

they step into the water elevator, and up they go‒ through the clear glass, tommy catches glimpses of other floors passing them, one filled with paper and maps, one with a couple of green beds and pedestals, one with shelves and shelves of what assumed were bookcases. one of the floors they passed, though, the glass was covered in wool on the outer edge, and tommy briefly remembered tubbo’s mention of soundproofing.

eventually, they step out onto solid, flat bark, and clear air, and tommy realizes they’re _in_ the canopy, now, at the top of this massive fucking giant treehouse, and it’s an entirely different jungle up here all itself. branches twisting, leaves drooping, vines tangling and sweeping, moss climbing. there are different railings and pathways and tubbo weaves them in and out of a few different larger, hollow branches. tommy feels like they’re getting way too close to the edge of the circumference of this thing’s reach‒ he wouldn’t say he’s scared, but he sure as hell isn’t sure tubbo’s not just going to take a wrong step somewhere and they’re going to tumble all the way to their death.

thinking about it makes him dizzy, until tubbo stops, suddenly, in a little nature made doorway covered in leaves, and holds a finger to his lips.

when they step through this time, they come upon a cozy little cave in the leaves, and there is a man in a red coat with dark, dragon-like wings kneeling at the edge of this platform, clearly in front of a grave. tommy has to squint, but he’s eventually able to read the words that are on the signs, scrawled in dark, shimmering ink.

_here lies jerry. he was a noble slime. may he rest in peace._

a slime... the man is mourning a slime‒

wait, tommy thinks. he’s heard this story before.

the man at the grave perks up when tubbo steps forward, and tommy sees his pointed ears twitch at the noise, a shiver running up his spine. only now does tommy notice the tail curled around his kneeling form, glowing softly like the fluorescent moss they’d seen on the first floor‒ it flicks behind him, briefly, before he straightens his spine and whips around, eyes wide and shining.

“ _tubbo_?”

“captain!” tubbo shouts, and then he’s running forward as the man tommy now knows as the captain stands.

“hey, tubbo,” the captain says, grunting when the boy threw his arms around him‒ tommy raises a brow at the way they’re the same height, at how awkwardly the captain pats tubbo’s pack in return for tubbo’s enthusiastic greeting. “what’s up, kid, haven’t seen you in a while. was wondering if you’d flown the nest for good this time.”

“nah, we’ve just had‒ we’ve just had a bit of a situation, at home. with schlatt and them.”

“schlatt?” the captain asks. “i thought he was gone?”

“dream let him back,” tommy finally pipes up, and the captain looks to him. his eyes are a deep, unnatural purple, and tommy swallows. “my brother wilbur was running for president and we thought uh. we thought schlatt would endorse us. he didn’t.”

“speaking of dream!” tubbo adds, and pulls out the box. the captain’s brow furrows in confusion, and he sets it on the ground, kneeling to open it up‒

sure enough, when tommy peers over the edge, there is a few potions of healing, of strength, and eight netherite ingots, with what looks to be about a half a stack of diamonds. the captain gives a long, heavy sigh, and tugs out a leather bound book, opening it and reading quickly through the pages, his face turning pale with every page he turned.

“okay,” the captain says quietly. “alright. okay, uh‒ tommy, yeah?”

“yeah,” tommy says, and shifts in place. “yeah, that’s‒ heh, that’s me!”

“why don’t you uh‒ why don’t i take you someplace to lie down, okay? you and tubbo really need to rest, you’ve been going all day.”

“that‒” and usually tommy would fight with that statement, usually there’d be some bite, some jab, but he’s exhausted. physically, emotionally, all the way to the nether and back, tommy is so fucking _tired_ , and he’s been putting it off way too long‒ he can feel everything start to creep up and crawl up his throat, building like an overheated bottle of glass. someone’s shaking the can with too much pressure and he hates it, he _hates_ looking weak in front of anyone, especially strangers‒

especially _legends_ , because he knows the story of the captain, and it fits just too goddamn well that tubbo knows the captain, doesn’t it.

tommy clears his throat as best he can and shoves his hands into his pocket and tries so fucking hard to look like he isn’t two seconds away from a breakdown‒ he wants his dad. he wants his brothers, from before. he wants l’manberg like it was, but what he has instead is a big fuckoff tree in the middle of nowhere, and his best friend, and some lost fucking hero who shouldn’t even be here.

“yeah,” he says quietly. “yeah, i’d like a bit of rest, thank you.”

* * *

tubbo leaves tommy alone pretty quickly.

he can tell his friend’s on the verge of something he’s way past needed for however long‒ but the captain’s tree is safe, and here, they’ll have as much time as they need, properly, to try to heal before returning. if they plan on returning.

the captain is waiting on tubbo’s floor, which makes him smile despite everything. he’s not so much a fan of the bees, really, so he doesn’t come often, but tubbo is grateful when he does. he’s grateful for everything, really‒ the captain hadn’t needed to make the floor for him entirely, but he’d done it anyways. he’d given tubbo somewhere _safe_.

the entire section was transformed, head to toe, into a garden‒ flowers of all sorts bloomed freely, given it a bit of a wild look, roses and daisies and tulips and orchids. tubbo’s favorite part, of course, is the manmade beehives the captain had helped him create. every once in a while, tubbo with gently take the extra honey and bottle it up‒ he hasn’t been around much, though, so he can’t help but wonder if the captain’s been doing it for him.

sure enough, there’s a chest beside one of the hives, every bottle neatly stacked and labeled from the past few weeks, and tubbo feels overwhelmed by joy, and relief‒ he’d never thought this would be so important, to him, but it _is._

he finds the captain among the lavender and allium, and is pleased to see little chorus flowers blooming at the feet of the bench he’s sitting on, every part of him seemingly relaxed as he rested his eyes to the bright mockery of sunlight he and tubbo had set up to help the flowers grow.

“captain,” he mumbles, and sits beside him‒ the man opens one of his eyes and looks towards him, but smiles and lifts and arm. tubbo immediately leans into the embrace and breathes a sigh of relief. “what did dream leave you?”

“couple of things to help the fighting, should it come to that.”

“would you?”

“help fight?”

“mm.”

the captain goes silent, for a moment, and tubbo frowns, worried he’d overstepped a boundary‒ but instead the older man gives a long, heavy sigh, and picks one of the alliums at his side. “i don’t know,” he finally admits. “that’s not‒ i’m not exactly... the best fighter.”

“that’s not how the stories go,” tubbo says, and then immediately winces. “sorry.”

“let me rephrase that,” the captain chuckles. “i _can_ fight, but unless necessary, it’s against the oath i swore to my lady.”

tubbo doesn’t know much about the captain’s lady, only what the stories tell, which isn’t much‒ just that he’d promised his loyalty to her, and championed for her, fought in her name. the few times they’d talked about her, tubbo hadn’t learned much more‒ they hadn’t been lovers, the captain was adamant about that. the other thing tubbo knew was that despite the way he talked about her, the captain’s lady wasn’t dead. she was simply missing from this realm, from this world.

"someday, tubbo," the captain says once. "someday i'll take you to meet her. i think you'd like her."

"would she like me?"

"of course," the captain says, with all the kindness in the world. "who wouldn't like you?"

tubbo thinks about that a lot.

“what would it take for you to join the fight?” tubbo asks instead, bringing his knees up to his chest. “because i‒ _we_ could really use your help.”

“i’ll check, bud,” the captain says after a moment. “i’ll check.”

“thanks, cap,” tubbo says quietly.

“no prob, tubbo.” a hand pets through his hair slowly, and tubbo breathes deep. “think it’s time for you to take a bit of rest too, huh?”

“can i stay up a little longer?” tubbo protests, immediately fighting off his exhaustion. “just to make sure everything’s alright in the garden.”

“yeah,” the captain laughs, and he stands up, stretching out his arms and wings. “but straight to bed after, okay?”

“i will, i will, i will, i will, i will‒”

“sleep good, tubbo,” the captain says, ruffling his hair as he walks away, and tubbo sits on the bench for just a little while longer with a smile that hurts with how wide it is.

* * *

jordan sighs when he steps back out onto the upper branches, wiping the blood from his nose and gently shoving his sunglasses up further. another world, and another war‒ gods forbid he ever escaped this, he supposes, but the peace was nice while it lasted. still, there was no guarantee that he’d have to be involved‒ it was time to ask, then.

on the other side of jerry’s grave was the shrine ‒ it traveled with him in mostly every realm, carefully crafted in the tree back in the first realm she’d met her in, the first world he’d known his calling. when the update to the end’s magic had come around, he’d rearranged it, replacing the pearly quartz and rough wool with hardened violet clay and the lilac purpur stone from the lost cities. the more the world changed, the more he could add.

when the world had changed around him, an immense weight had been lifted, and he’d realized, finally, he was inhuman‒ the word for what he was was _warden_ , and the relief that had come with the change was only part of the delight he’d felt as everything had shifted around him. amethysts and sculks and glowberries and _everything_ , and the world shifts wonderfully, makes him breathe so, so much easier‒ and, he realizes a little giddily, he can add candles to the shrine.

he brings them with him this time around, ducking beneath a few vines where the overworld growth meets the chorus plants‒ jerry’s tree grows lilies of the valley up on the branches, here, and the only light from the end rods he’d set beside the entryway. he sits and crosses his legs, and puts the candles near the shells he’d found in the isles, striking up a little flame between his fingers and lighting each of the three wicks‒

blue on the left, red on the right, and purple, lastly, in the middle.

“my lady,” he prays with a quiet breath. “what... what am i doing, here?”

he waits, patiently, and in time he receives his answer‒ silk across his shoulders, the flare of the fire in the red candle, brighter than blue, blinding and flickering wildly. if he keeps his eyes closed and focuses hard enough, he can hear her voice in his ear, just for a moment, over the waves and the emptiness and the distant screams of endermen in chorus.

“yes, my lady,” he sighs. “if it comes to that, i will.”

and with that, the candles blow out, and the silk slips from his shoulders. he wipes his eyes and flicks his tail behind him, twitching his ear just to make sure everything around the tree is safe‒ tubbo is tucked away in his bedroom just above his garden, heart a little fast, but who could blame him, and jordan would have to check on his burns in the morning. another flick of the ear and he briefly hears tommy a few floors below, taking a slow, deep, shivering breath, and his heart sinks‒ he knows that sound. he knows the aftermath of a breakdown.

fine, he thinks to himself, and pulls a string of twine from nothing, unraveling a scroll of parchment and biting into his fingertip to draw a little blood. this system of messaging is archaic, but unless he goes to the main server, and leaves his update area, he’s not going to contact who he needs to either way.

he takes a deep, heavy breath, a shiver up his spine. thinks about the kids in his home. thinks about the kids in the mainland. thinks about the not-god waiting at the border of his jungle, who’d left him a book, who’d told him _exactly_ what was going on‒ dream is strong, jordan thinks, but he is still young, and lost, and right now, he’s alone. all of them are in their own ways alone

so now it’s his turn to help them in the only way he can. he drops a little blood onto the parchment, and swipes the rest away from his finger.

"hey," jordan says, fiddling uneasily with the twine. "i, uh. i know we don't know each other very well, but i thought you ought to know exactly what's going on, considering it involves your boys. a war's coming- a real war, a messy one- and it's coming to dream's realm. from what i've heard you've been having trouble getting through the portal, though, so i have an idea on how to get you here."

he swallows, and tries to hide the shake in his voice.

"the way things are going, it's not going to end well. for any of them. so i'm really hoping this message gets to you, or else things aren't gonna- well. best not to think about that. if you do get this, you know where to meet me."

a half-hearted chuckle, and a long sigh.

"hope to see you soon, phil."

**Author's Note:**

> my [tumblr](http://transandor.tumblr.com)  
> don't expect anything but mianite SORRY ,, i'm a jordan stan first and a living being last.


End file.
